Category Archives: Writing

Provincetown takes center stage in new book

Remaining in Provincetown By S.N.Cook. Truro Works. 306 pages $12.95 Trade Paperback

Remaining in Provincetown
By S.N.Cook.
Truro Works. 306 pages
$12.95 Trade Paperback

Provincetown, that enigmatic town on the tip of Cape Cod, is part of the title of the newly released murder mystery Remaining in Provincetown, and it is the core focus of a perfect mystery lite.  A story that delves into the thoughts, fears, and aspirations of a medley of characters as varied in their socio-economic and sexual orientations as the town in which they reside.

 Roz Silva, is the power hungry publisher/editor of the town’s (fictitious) weekly newspaper The Provincetown Observer. Widowed three years earlier, with two teenage daughters, she is attractive and lonely—so lonely she’s been carrying on what she thinks is a secret love affair with the new town manager, who just happens to be married. But in a small town, there are no secrets.  Certainly talented and sensitive Frank Chambers, a chef and owner of the highly regarded Indigo Inn, knows of Roz’s indiscretions and he’s not going to pass judgment on who she sleeps with when he is too busy worrying how to get his restaurant staffed for the upcoming season and whether the HIV virus he’s carrying will develop into a full blown case of AIDS.  But he and his good friend Bruno, an Innkeeper with a weakness for young boys, do know one thing, they don’t like Roz and they want to start an alternative publication—a magazine.

And then there is the murder. Sonny Carreiro, Portuguese American native son, insurance agent, and real estate developer is mysteriously shot in front of his home on a Sunday evening and there are no witnesses. But there are plenty of suspects. He’s been separated from his wife Sarah for several months. Why did she leave him? He’s not on speaking terms with his business partner Beau Costa. Where was Beau on Sunday night?  Who in Sonny’s past, may have a score to settle?

Set in the early 1990s in a version of Provincetown which contains many actual businesses and locations used in a fictional context along with newly created places and situations that may feel oddly familiar, the book brings to life a town known for its beauty and the unique diversity of its inhabitants.  Available online at Amazon.com and at local bookstores in trade paperback, 306 pages $12.95 retail or as a kindle ebook, it is destined to become a mystery classic.

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Writing about the nature of Provincetown, Cape Cod

New state road

Once the dunes were covered with forests,” writes Mary Heaton Vorse (1874-1966) in her classic book about Provincetown entitled, Time and the Town, The early settlers cut them down and made their houses and vessels of them The old houses in Provincetown are made from timber cut here.”

Vorse first came to Provincetown in 1907 for a short vacation, ended up buying a house and staying on and off Cape Cod for the rest of her life.  She writes eloquently about many things including the sand dunes. “The dune walks. A great wind will lift them bodily.  A vast crater will appear where last year there was one. The wind piles up a mountain of sand and things may begin to grow upon its top. Then the mountain will be again leveled off. There is space here. There is an expanse that gives the illusion that the other side of the dunes is a great way off, as one feels in the West, looking over a great mesa.”  Time and the Town was published in 1942.

Provincetown has continued to attract and inspire writers.   What are the mysterious dynamics of the town? Intrigued to read more? Check out Remaining in Provincetown, the new mystery novel now available at Amazon.com in trade paperback or on kindle. Like the Remaining in Provincetown Facebook page and keep the conversation going.

Provincetown Poet of the Dunes, early Cape Cod publisher

Cape Cod Sand Dunes

Cape Cod Sand Dunes

Provincetown’s sand dunes, now part of the Cape Cod National Seashore, have inspired many artists. One writer, closely associated with the dunes was Harry Kemp,(1883-1960) who was fondly referred to by the summer and year-round residents as “The Poet of the Dunes”. It is likely Kemp helped promote that name for himself, as one of his poetry collections he self-published in 1952 was entitled Poet of the Dunes.  Here is one of his short poems.

My Books

My books are ragged veterans

    Much leaked on in my shack;

But each of them’s bound with a rainbow

     And wears glory on its back.

Born in Youngstown, Ohio, Kemp first arrived in Provincetown in 1916.  His memoir, Tramping on LIfe: an Autobiographical Narrative (1922) was a bestseller during the 1920a and 30s. He was part of the elite circle of bohemian writers  of his era  that  included Upton SInclalir, Max Eastman, Eugene O’Neill, Edmund WIlson, John Dos Passos and many others. Setting down roots for a time in Greenwich Village, In the late 1920’s he started spending his summers in a Provincetown dune shack.  A heavy drinker and a womanizer, he was a master of self-promotion, performing stunts for the press in order to garner publicity and attention. Eventually his literary popularity waned, and when he could no longer find a publisher for his poetry, he founded the Provincetown Publishers and had his books printed by the Advocate Press which he sold for two dollars and autographed with a seagull feather along with an envelope of sand “gathered from the first landing place of The Pilgrims”.  Now that is marketing for you!

While the purchase of the new mystery novel Remaining in Provincetown does not include sand gathered from the dunes, it is the hope of the writer that when you read the book you will feel as if you’ve been walking on the streets of Provincetown, which usually results in a little sand in your shoes. Now available in trade paperback or on kindle at Amazon.com , Like us on Facebook and keep the conversation going.